[VRWCmember]

Some observations:

The concern centered on a lesson that prepared students to read the book, about a mischievous white boy who travels down the Mississippi River on a raft with Jim, a runaway slave. Jim is referred to as a n----- throughout the book.

Perhaps this is nitpicking, but the character is called "N----- Jim" throughout the book, just like an antagonist character is called "Injun Joe" throughout the book. The fact that Huck and Tom refer to the characters with these names is a reflection of the times in which the novel was written and a reflection of the characters' immaturity and lack of education. In the context of the novel, and linguistically, this is somewhat different from simply saying that the character "is referred to as a n----- throughout the book".

"We are here today to say we will not tolerate the n-word being used by any educators anywhere in any school district throughout our region or the state of Texas," said Ron Price, a Dallas school district trustee. "It's critical that we examine all of our textbooks to ensure that the language is proper and that the language is not being used to abuse any child in any public school."

In other words, Mr. Ron Price (democrat) from Dallas favors censorship and book banning when it involves words he deems offensive.

While I think the teacher probably handled this situation incorrectly and probably did not follow the lesson plan as it was intended, this seems to be an overreaction on the part of the school district.

[atomic conspiracy]

I guess they didn’t get to the part of the story where Duke and King dress Jim in a kaffiyeh and charge people admission to see the “Mad Arab, harmless when he is not out of his mind.”

We could have expected a major jihad from Haltom City’s Arab street, all 6 of them. That would be more than enough to cow the little mice at the school district though.

[usurper]

I have some personal papers written by a distant relative from around the same time. He was in the military and was traveling to our southern border for some forgotten dust up with Mexico.

He was just some kid out of Iowa leaving town for the first time. In his writing he refers to the first time he saw black people and referred to them by the n-word. He did not use it is a disparaging way but simply as a common description like Indian or Mexican.

Historical context is everything but some people have an agenda to keep America separated.

[PAR35]

I hope that that boy never runs across the original Tom Swift books. http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/01tom11h.htm

[dragonblustar]

And while the group wanted the teacher to be required to do community outreach work with black and Muslim communities,

I bet they really wanted to stone her.

[Non-Sequitur]

"It's critical that we examine all of our textbooks to ensure that the language is proper and that the language is not being used to abuse any child in any public school."

Except, of course, when it comes to black authors like Richard Wright or Maya Angelou, right?